WILLIAM OF NOTTINGHAM; S. XIV ex.

Title

WILLIAM OF NOTTINGHAM; S. XIV ex.

Shelfmark

Merton College MS. 157

Place of origin

script of English appearance.

Date

s. xiii

S. XIV ex.

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Parchment

Physical extent

364 leaves (ii + 362) The edges retrimmed and spattered with red. Contemporary foliation, mostly trimmed away.

Hands

A single scribe writing anglicana formata. Running heads between specially ruled lines.

Decoration

Large red and blue initials flourished in the colours and violet, with borders featuring oak leaves and grotesques; blue initials flourished in red, red initials flourished in violet; red or blue paraphs, red highlighting and underlining.

Binding

Standard Merton s. xvii; sewn on nine bands (though four are actually stubbed off); formerly chained from the usual position. Possibly once chained from the foot of an earlier front board. fol. 362 was formerly reversed and the rear pastedown in another, smaller book, sewn on six bands.

Provenance

At the foot of fol. 2, in formal script, ‘Ex dono Iohannis Woode in theologia baccalarii quondam consocii collegii de Merton in Oxonia’.

To fol. iiv is pasted a label, doubtless originally under horn and nailed to the back cover, in the same hand: ‘Notyngham super euuangelia. Ex dono M. Iohannis Wode quondam archdiaconi Midd’’. For John Wode, fellow c. 1445–50, d. by Nov. 1475, see MS 55.

Pen-trials and scribbles of s. xvi occur in the margins passim, e.g. at the foot of fol. 189 ‘Henry the Wyte’ and ‘Thomashe Dury’.

More at the head of fol. 214 incl. ‘Iohannes Lod'.

At the head of fol. 1 is the James no. ‘124’, s. xvii in.

Inside the front board is a sheet of paper with contents, s. xvii, and ‘O. 5. 8. Art:’ canc. and replaced with ‘L. 3. 5 (CLVII)’ in red. Below is the College bookplate. ‘8’ is inked on the foredge.